Confessions of a Shopaholic

ONE SMALL compensation for the recent economic downturn comes with the knowledge that the sort of people referenced in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholicnovels (these materialistic drones do exist in the real world, I assume) will soon be reduced to eating their Gucci knapsacks and making tents from sewn-together Vera Wang frocks. You won't be so keen on shopping when there's nothing to buy but stewed rats and potato gruel. Ha ha!

Where was I? The first film derived from Ms Kinsella’s books stars Isla Fisher as a woman who is so addicted to shopping she believes that store-window mannequins speak directly to her. On the same day that several hefty credit-card bills arrive, she loses her job and is forced to consider a change in lifestyle.

After failing to secure employment at a fancy style magazine, Isla (very timely this) stumbles into a position writing a column for a periodical devoted to living the thrifty life. How long will it take before she realises that Hugh Dancy, the magazine’s editor, is the man for her?

The confirmed consumer may, quite reasonably, treat Confessions of a Shopaholicas a cheap Taiwanese knock-off of designer goods from the Sex and the Cityand Devil Wears Pradabrands. After all, the film's plot, like that of SATC, follows a New York columnist as she balances her search for the perfect man with her quest for the ideal high-heel. As in Prada, the editor of a style magazine takes every chance to scowl at the hapless heroine.

Yet Confessions is, to be fair, somewhat less morally dubious and considerably better acted than Sex and the City. Fisher fizzes with the kind of friendly energy that is seen far too rarely in contemporary comedies (or, at least, those that don't feature Amy Adams). And. playing the Gallic editor of a Vanity Fairclone, Kristin Scott Thomas confirms that she has – bizarrely – turned into the Anglophone's favourite Frenchwoman.

None of which is to deny that Confessions of a Shopaholic, by simultaneously celebrating and decrying gross consumerism, engages in rank hypocrisy, or that the film's sexual politics have not advanced far beyond those of the average Doris Day comedy. It's more of the same reactionary rubbish, but handled with a degree of good taste.

Directed by PJ Hogan. Starring Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow, Kristin Scott Thomas PG cert, gen release, 104 min★★